By popular demand, and part of the promotion of our upcoming trip to Provence, I am reposting this recipe of the Bouillabaisse, probably the most famous fish soup in the World, or at least in my world....Enjoy with no moderation.

My favourite fishmonger on the harbour of Marseille

And yes, it is where it all started, in Marseille, a busy fishing and commercial port, now the second biggest city in France besides Paris. After a period of chaos and neglect, it has to be said that theCity of Marseille is back to a proper tourist, shopping and food destination, as it was when i was a little boy...At the time, you would find some of the best bouillabaisses on the Vieux Port, and you could still probably find a proper one there, but you are probably better of moving to the Corniche and eat Chez Michel, or to the quaint little calanque of Vallon des Auffes and eat chez Fonfon. Or even better off to Cassis on the set of Marseilles or Martigues on the west, both about an hour drive away from Marselle.My grandparents used to take us to either for what they thought was the best places for that local stewToday, I would probably recommend Cassis, because of all the other attractions of the place, specially out of season - May, June, September and October being the best.

Marseille - Vallon des Auffes

Marseille - La Corniche

Martigues - Le Miroir aux Oiseaux

Ma Bouillabaisse

Well, after this lengthy introduction, I hope you are hungry and ready to go throughout all the steps of this fantastic recipe. There are various schools as how to serve this dish, whether you serve everything in one plate, or if you have it in two servings - I prefer the last one, hence it is how i served it today.This has an influence on how you prepare it, and in today's case, I was not sure on the time at which we would have lunch, so I catered for that too in my preparation.

Now, what ingredients will you need?Well, it is common to have three type of fish and probably some shellfish as well.I had some salmon and turbot left from previous lunches in the freezer, and I found some barbounias at the Fish Market, which will do as my rock fish for today. The rule is to have white fish, another fatier one and some rockfish like rascasse, but they are out of season, and i also bought some mussels.You will need onions - I used spanish and shallots - garlic (bien sûr...) and fennel, celery, carrots for and tomatoes the stock and potatoes to serve with the fish. Guillaume Brahimi adds some orange zest so I did!Did I mention olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme? What would you do without these staple ingredients?And, by the way, I asked the fishmonger to fillet the barbounias and give me the heads and bones also.You will need about two hours to prepare and cook this dish, so plan ahead, specially if you have guests

The basics: Spanish onion, shallot, garlic and orange zest

In the pan, a generous dose of olive oil, onions, fennel tops, fish heads and bones

Let fry for 5 mms and deglaze with some white wine

Add the garlic, zest and other vegetables. Cover with water, add saffron or smoked paprika, whole pepper grains and a few cloves. Let cook for 45 mins

Peel the potatoes and put them to cook in water and salt in the bottom part of a steamer for 20 mins

Prepare the fish and put in the top part of the steamer 15 mms before the stock is ready

Now, it is time to prepare the "rouille", a mayonnaise with saffron

Once the stock is ready, put all the solids into a blender, and filter the stock into another recipient, then filter the paste out of the blender into the stock which is now the fish soup

Drop the mussels into the soup and reheat gently until the mussels are opened and cooked

The fish should be ready by now

Keep the fish and the mussels in the middle basket of the steamer, after removing the potatoes which are cooked by now. Reserve the cooking water in the pan of the steamer. Cover until ready to serve

Keep the potatoes in the top basket of the steamer

Serve the soup first with some grilled bread and the rouille. Put some rouille on the bread and dip into the soup: yummy!

Then serve the fish, mussels and potatoes. Pour some of the soup and olive oil over and enjoy!